PL Top 4 race

TrustInJanuzaj said:
Arsenal and Liverpool are tough games but we are at home so shouldn’t fear them. Chelsea, Newcastle and Brighton? Nah not having them as major concerns. Don’t get me wrong we could fail to get a result because we are inconsistent but they aren’t great sides at all.
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Really does baffle me reading stuff like this. Have you watched us this season by any chance? We've just lost to Fulham, and got comprehensively battered for 90 minutes against fecking Brentford.

And yet, the top half sides are not "major concerns".

We have to remember that we are absolutely dreadful at football. The opposition are irrelevant at this point, when we're as dreadful as we are we have to assume high likelihood of dropped points every time we step on the pitch.
 
Update odds: we now have 13% chance of CL qualification, provided England secures an extra spot.


 
TrustInJanuzaj said:
Arsenal and Liverpool are tough games but we are at home so shouldn’t fear them. Chelsea, Newcastle and Brighton? Nah not having them as major concerns. Don’t get me wrong we could fail to get a result because we are inconsistent but they aren’t great sides at all.
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We don't win very often at Chelsea and pretty sure our recent record v Brighton is dreadful.
And that's in your not tough games section!

We might produce a game raising bastads performance in the two homes, but we're just as likely to comfortably lose.

And all of this is in the context that we probably need to win 7/9 to get top 5.
 
Sandikan said:
We don't win very often at Chelsea and pretty sure our recent record v Brighton is dreadful.
And that's in your not tough games section!

We might produce a game raising bastads performance in the two homes, but we're just as likely to comfortably lose.

And all of this is in the context that we probably need to win 7/9 to get top 5.
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Our record against Chelsea means little considering how bad Chelsea are now compared to what they once were. I think as bad as Utd have been we still roll them over. Brighton yeh they are the sort of team who will cause us massive issues. For what it’s worth I’d stop worrying about top 5 because we don’t have a prayer.
 
TrustInJanuzaj said:
Our record against Chelsea means little considering how bad Chelsea are now compared to what they once were. I think as bad as Utd have been we still roll them over. Brighton yeh they are the sort of team who will cause us massive issues. For what it’s worth I’d stop worrying about top 5 because we don’t have a prayer.
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Yep, 6th is what we deserve this season.
Way too many hapless defeats and we haven't solved the massive problem of teams just romping through our midfield all season.

The win against Liverpool and International break made a few people forget how the season has been I think. Back to reality immediately.
 
Current coefficient rankings"

Italy 18.428 (basically unassailable so not even going to game it out)
Germany 16.785 (seven teams)
England 16.750 (8 teams)

Let's take a seemingly fairly likely scenario and see how this plays out:

Liverpool wins against Atalanta but not by enough to advance (2 points PL)
West Ham loses against Leverkusen (0 points PL, 3 points Bundesliga for win and advancing next round)
Arsenal loses against Bayern (0 points PL, 3 points Bundesliga for win and advancing next round)
City wins against Real Madrid (3 points PL for win and advancing next round)
Dortmund draws against Atleti and is out (1 point Bundesliga)
Aston Villa draws against Lille and advances (2 points PL)

Bundesliga will be on 17.785
PL will be on 17.625

Now say both Villa and Leverkusen win their semi-finals with a win and draw, get another point for advancing again, and win their respective finals for 6 points total.

Bundesliga 18.642
PL 18.375

Now say City beat Bayern with a big win at home and a narrow loss away, so PL gets 3 points and Bundesliga 2 with the CL final yet to be played.

Bundesliga 18.92
PL 18.75

City winning the CL would give the spot to the PL, losing (or going to penalties, which counts as a draw) would give the spot to the Bundesliga!

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Alternative Scenario:

Villa loses to Lille and goes out
Arsenal draws Bayern but beats them on penalties, where they also lose to City

(-8 PL points from Villa)
(+4 points PL from Arsenal)
(-4 points Bundesliga from Bayern)

Bundesliga 18.356
PL 18.25

Similar situation for the CL final, with City needing to win outright to give the PL the spot.


Big conclusions:

- This is all under the fairly likely scenario in which Liverpool, Dortmund, and West Ham go out.
- If both the Arsenal-Bayern and Villa-Lille ties go favorably for either the PL or Bundesliga, its largely decided.
- If those ties end up one and one, the margins will be incredibly fine and there is a very good chance that 5th place will depend on result of the CL final.
 
Love how the predictions on this page have aged.

Perhaps I’m not the only one who should never go near a bookies :lol:
 
VP89 said:
Im actually agreeing with the sentiment of another poster who has called you out for effectively overly whinging with pessimism.

If we are getting 19 from the last 10 whilst playing poorly without a lot of key players and with harder oppositions, in what world would anyone think we can't do similar with key players back and easier opponents?
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Like I said a month back, you just had to watch us play to know we were never getting the points once the games got tougher.
 
Leftback99 said:
Like I said a month back, you just had to watch us play to know we were never getting the points once the games got tougher.
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Its just easily predictable, like how some were getting giddy when we started off 2024 with a few wins. Just so inevitable we'd feck up during this period, we've got bad fixtures with the exception of the Burnley, Sheffield Utd games. Just inevitable we'd slip up, we're just so shit against semi decent teams.
 
RedSky said:
Its just easily predictable, like how some were getting giddy when we started off 2024 with a few wins. Just so inevitable we'd feck up during this period, we've got bad fixtures with the exception of the Burnley, Sheffield Utd games. Just inevitable we'd slip up, we're just so shit against semi decent teams.
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Yep. A few completely unconvincing wins didn't fool some of us. The underlying performance catches up with you eventually.
 
I also want to know how this will pan out assuming that the PL won't get the 5th CL spot.

1-4 - Champions League
5th - Europe league
FA cup winner (if anyone other than City) - Europa League.
6th - Europa league if City win the Fa cup. Otherwise Europa Conference.
6th/7th - Europa Conference since Liverpool won the league cup.

Is that correct?
 
Karel Podolsky said:
So no Champions League slot for #5?
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Still possible, but Villa will have to do some heavy lifting. I think the German teams need around 5 points out of all remaing matches to seal it, which is not a small ask given the opponents include Real and PSG.
Even France could still nick the spot.
 
GhastlyHun said:
Still possible, but Villa will have to do some heavy lifting. I think the German teams need around 5 points out of all remaing matches to seal it, which is not a small ask given the opponents include Real and PSG.
Even France could still nick the spot.
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Geemany needs 5 points only in the evnet France aces it completely. (With both Paris and Marseille winning 3 games each)… To beat England, the German clubs only need 3 points (basically a Leverkusen qualification would be enough if we imagine both Bayern and Dortmund losing twice in the CL semis…) or for Villa to drop some…
 
Pintu said:
Geemany needs 5 points only in the evnet France aces it completely. (With both Paris and Marseille winning 3 games each)… To beat England, the German clubs only need 3 points (basically a Leverkusen qualification would be enough if we imagine both Bayern and Dortmund losing twice in the CL semis…) or for Villa to drop some…
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Thanks for the clarification. How crazy it would be if France manages to pull this off at the very end :lol: German teams losing all matches in the CL SF is not too unlikely.
 
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